This invention relates to ice making and more particularly to ice makers for producing pieces of disc shaped ice submerged in a tank of water held at a temperature near freezing. This water becomes the storage medium for the commonly called ice cubes.
This invention employs an external coil evaporator utilizing a liquid refrigerant for freezing and its hot gas state to effect harvesting. External evaporators have previously been employed for producing ice uner water.
An improvement over present coils by the herein disclosed evaporator is the unique configuration of the coil which lends it to lower cost for fabrication and ease of maintenance.
The deformation of the evaporator coil is accomplished by a mechanical press. The coil then is applied to the exterior of the storage tank by clamping, thus eliminating all soldering procedures.
Other methods of attaching the coil to the exterior of the storage tank such as spot welding, cold soldering or similar methods is recognized herewith and considered as common to the art.
The interior freezing surfaces are readily available for cleaning by removing the enclosing head unit and its various components. This configuration provides for a highly compact arrangement which is efficient in initial cost for construction, space requirements for the several elements and also for the energy requirements needed to effect heat transfer from the stored water.
Ice dispensing machines are well known to the art. Most of these devices deliver the ice from a delivery spout attached to the machine. This in many cases is an inconvenience in that a bulky machine or storage bin is required in a convenient location to the user. Often valuable counter space is sacrificed for this equipment.
An improvement over this arrangement is provided by the design of a remote dispensing head requireing comparatively little counter space.
The two embodiments of this invention provide for a compact ice making machine and dispensing head, constructed essentially as set forth in the Abstract, the dispensing head being incorporated in the machine and all suitable for installing in a serving counter line.